


Movement: Measure

by philomel



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: First Time, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-02
Updated: 2012-05-02
Packaged: 2017-11-04 17:04:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/396161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/philomel/pseuds/philomel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Concerto for a cab ride.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span class="small">No spoilers.</span>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Movement: Measure

There are seventeen centimeters of space between John and Sherlock. 

Approximately six and eleven-sixteenths inches. 

Less space than that which is between Sherlock’s knees and the front seat of the cab. (Ten centimeters if he sits up straight, which he does.) 

Less space than between Sherlock’s head and the roof of the cab. Less still when the driver hits a bump in the road (a discarded shoe — a man’s, leather, solid and sturdy — well, previously solid, now softened by the tyres). 

Typically, two passengers, not a couple, seek out the farthest corners of the seat, occasionally tucking themselves into said corners. In a city where everything is crammed together, tiny and ancient and unaccommodating, people seek out whatever personal space they can find. But John and Sherlock sit neither away from nor toward each other, with their shoulders pressed squarely into the back of the seat — personal space shared and, thus, redefined. Out of alignment with the driver, just left, John is closer to the center of the seat than to the door. And, while the lure of the window pulls Sherlock’s attention left, he stays put in the exact middle of his half of the seat, fingers of his right hand drumming on his knee. (Vivaldi. Concerto for Violin and Strings in E-flat. Presto.)

John doesn’t ask him to stop. He usually does. Six minutes of finger tapping, seven tops: that seems to be his limit when they’re in the thick of a case. As they are. His threshold expands to eight minutes, thirty-two seconds — the current record — after a case has been solved. 

They’ve been in the cab now for eleven minutes, fifty-seven seconds. Why has John broken away from his predictable form? 

Sherlock stills his fingers. He continues staring out the window to his left, but has John in his periphery. He starts tapping again. The final Presto, faster than notated. 

John doesn’t even shift. His breathing remains steady.

He might as well be asleep. But Sherlock knows he isn’t.

Sherlock slides his hand down until the side of his palm touches the seat, fingers curling, middle fingernail catching against the seam of his trousers as he mimes the bowing, the fingers on his left hand padding notes against the side of his left knee. 

A sharp turn at a changing light sends Sherlock sliding fractionally (0.75 centimeters, a hair’s breadth short) closer to the center of the seat.

John does not move, although social norms would dictate such movement. 

The curve in the seat between them, that place not sunk in by the weight of their bodies, becomes more pronounced with this change, the seat cover worn and ill-fit and bunching. Sherlock is sure John can feel the movement of his hand on each down stroke, compressing the vinyl cushion momentarily, repeatedly. 

There’s a subtle sound of skin separating. John’s lips parting. About to speak. 

Here it comes then. Sherlock almost smiles. 

“Bach?” John says.

Sherlock doesn’t smile, after all.

“What?”

“Is it Bach?” John asks the question facing forward, his chin inclined toward Sherlock by a marginal degree. 

That’s interesting. That’s close. Managed the correct period, at least. A contemporary.

“Vivaldi,” Sherlock says, sounding bored. He isn’t, and for once it’s difficult to feign feeling the opposite of what he does feel. 

Which is?

Intrigued. Yes, Sherlock concludes that’s a fair fit. Fair enough.

But there’s a squat, chipped, green glass vase with compacted, old, chalky potting soil in it and a bloodstained trowel with peeling plastic on its handle and a missing pensioner who suffered from multiple allergies and backyard foxes who stopped crying at exactly three past ten five nights ago — and that should be more intriguing. But the answer to that problem has already begun to converge, and bigger mysteries wait in the wings of every case, waiting to upstage.

This mystery has John Watson’s simple, normal name on it. Quiet, precise, block-lettered name. Plain. Deceptive.

John calls attention to himself by not calling attention to himself. And Sherlock is riveted, staring at the faces of buildings through the window but not seeing, ear pricked toward John’s sounds. Inhale, exhale. Repeat, all as usual. Slightly deeper inhale. Different, but not quite a sigh when it’s released. 

Then — the rustle of canvas jacket, one size too big. The tiny creak of the springs in the seat beneath them. A redistribution of weight. And, then, dry, cool skin.

Still chilled from the air outside and the low-set heat in the cab, chapped slightly, cracked around three nails, with a rough patch of old callus under the thumb and forefinger each, John’s dominant hand — not John’s shooting hand (trained otherwise) — touches Sherlock’s right. Mostly straight fingers, following a natural downward angle, apply the barest pressure. But it stops Sherlock’s fingers in the midst of their agitato. 

“That’s enough,” John says.

“It helps me think,” Sherlock says, clicking the k. He resumes his rhythm, backs of his fingers pushing up against John’s palm, abandoning the bowing for the notes themselves. He can envision them, flickering past like streetlight through the windows, passing, fleeting. Flash and darkness, sound and rest. Small spaces in between — so small, one would think the notes were falling over each other, chasing, tripping, catch as catch can.

It’s just that much space between Sherlock’s hand and John’s. And John doesn’t expand upon it. He stays.

Sherlock thinks of Helen Keller hearing music. Can John listen past the silence and hear the ruckus in Sherlock’s head, reigned in on baroque? Flourishing baroque, with its filigrees and layers and details on details coalescing into the simple singularity of perfection. Is that John catching up with him?

Or is it the other way round?

John’s thumb hooks under Sherlock’s fingers and gathers them together, tempers his movement with stillness.

Then, John’s fingertips tap _one, two, three, four_ down the crease of Sherlock’s palm. No adagio, albeit slow, this follows no discernible pattern, courts chaos like avant garde compositions — those pieces that exist to make a point and little else. Or else, Sherlock missed something.

What could he possibly have missed?

John’s eyes remain focused on the road ahead as though he were navigating this drive. His lips are closed but relaxed, jaw showing no tension. His legs are spread but bent straight at the knee. 

It could be any cab ride home. Take away one for the uncharacteristic proximity. Take away two, then, for the uncalled for touch. Eliminate these, and the equation holds, a stable and neutral zero. 

But there they are, those variations, putting negative space in Sherlock’s brain. Parts that aren’t filled, didn’t need to be filled, did they? Until they were put there.

Headlights go by and illuminate the grey in John’s eyes. Sherlock realizes he’s been looking at John, has turned toward him, tossed aside all pretense of boredom or disinterest. And there it is: the slightest inability to maintain his focus, to fight the flutter of his eyelids when John strokes his finger down the inside of Sherlock’s wrist.

The measure between that touch and the next cannot be calculated. 

(It can, but Sherlock stopped counting.)

**Author's Note:**

> Written to a prompt by autumnsparkle, who asked for "something non-smutty about a long taxi ride in the dark."


End file.
